Young voters may be growing up in an era of increased global connection, cooperation and commerce. But they're very open to politicians who tell them it is these very things that are keeping elites in power and keeping their generation down.

Let's think about where things stood in December 2015. By that time, Republicans had already had such epic and long-standing struggles with young people that I'd written a whole book about it. Additionally, Republicans had already had a bruising start to their primary season.

The idea that someone, somewhere will campaign in a positive, uplifting way on an agenda that can inspire Americans? I'm sadly done holding my breath.

Tax reform exists, sort of, as an outline - miles away from being actual passed legislation.

Candidates, of course, often claim that they want to run 'a purely positive campaign,' but this rarely materializes.

'Staunch conservatives' and 'free marketeers' are fairly typical Republicans, while the 'American preservationists' are far less reliably a part of a GOP coalition.

Obama's numbers fell by a slightly larger amount over his first few months because he enjoyed much more support right at the start from Republicans, support that eroded quickly.

There's no counting the number of times the media have asked, 'Will this be the thing that drives Donald Trump's supporters away from him? Is this finally the time?'

Electing Democrats means nothing happens. Elect Republicans, and at least there's a chance.

There's no question that a Democratic Congress plus a Trump presidency would equal gridlock. Nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing gets accomplished, nothing gets reformed. Voters know this.

In 2010, voters certainly hit the brakes on the Obama presidency. Fast forward to the 2016 election, where voters yanked up on the emergency brake and did a donut in the parking lot. Now, the car has stopped. We sit here dizzy for a moment, looking to get on the road again.

Overall, America's math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have risen since the 1990s though remain disappointing when compared to the rest of the globe.

Either people are changing their minds about Trump, or increasing numbers of his supporters are deciding it is too embarrassing to admit they support him. Neither is a particularly good position to be in.

The reality is that the Republican Party may have unified government but is not unified enough on many major signature policy areas.

Congress has been productive when focusing on bites of policy that don't inflame the divisions within the party and quietly do the work of governing.

If there is one issue where one could justifiably assume that Republicans are all in agreement, it is on lowering taxes.

Millennials are not deeply familiar with school choice, and have some reservations, especially about the types of institutions that a student might choose to attend with taxpayer dollars.

Often times, when we talk about improving our public schools, it is easy to come back to the question of money. Are schools basically fine, just underfunded? Millennials say no - more funding isn't the cure-all for what ails our schools.

Millennials easily connect the dots between good education and good opportunities, and they also understand that it isn't just hard work that determines how well a child will be educated - it also depends on where they live and the resources their parents commit to their education.

In the United States, it is unmistakable that young people have broken away from the political right and have gravitated to more leftist-populist figures like Bernie Sanders.

Trump won 44.4 percent of votes in Virginia in 2016. At press time, Ed Gillespie had won 45 percent of the vote in 2017.

Without a clear diagnosis of why the candidate or party failed, there can be no clear consensus about how to move forward.

After Mitt Romney's defeat, the RNC released its official assessment of what happened - a failure to reach younger voters, nonwhite voters, women - but was met with a counter-narrative that, in fact, it was Romney's failure to be conservative enough that led to a depressed Republican base.

Election losses are always an inkblot test for partisans. If a candidate's defeat has no clear and obvious cause, if the data points are all over the map, it is easy for those on the sidelines to claim, 'Candidate X would have won if only he or she had been more like... me.'